


Stops and Starts

by anotherthief



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 23:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8866879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherthief/pseuds/anotherthief
Summary: Dutch finds him in a bar. It’s fairly anticlimactic. Not unlike their first meeting, now that she thinks about it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pluvial_poetry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluvial_poetry/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy! Happy Holidays!

Dutch is mad as hell at Johnny for running, and for three days she means it when she says that she is absolutely positively not going chasing after his sorry ass. Then day four comes. She meant it when she told him he was her gravity, and like gravity, she doesn’t get a choice in the pull he has on her. For three days she was mad and refused to talk about it with D’avin. For three days she pretended she wasn’t going to track him down and thought of ways she could pay him back for pulling this shit. And then on the fourth day, she started tracking the aliases he didn’t think she knew he kept up from old jobs, just in case. The thing about best friends is even when you’re mad as hell at them, you’d still rather be mad at them and with them, than mad at them and apart. Which is why two weeks after Johnny disappeared, Dutch found him.

Some things never change.

 

**_six years and change earlier_ **

 

_“What the hells are you doing on my ship?”_

What Johnny was expecting when he jumped and saw Dutch had come up behind him, she isn’t sure. What he found was Dutch in a wedding dress, holding a gun pointed at his crotch, and looking thoroughly murderous.

Did she mention her dress was dripping blood? Cause that part she imagines neither of them will ever forget. The next part is hazier.

Johnny started talking, she remembers that. He talked a lot. He’s always had the verbal thing, but whether that’s good or bad depends on the day. That day it was probably a good thing, because if he’d made a move for a weapon or back toward the exit, she’d probably have killed him. But he started talking to her - not to a princess or a pawn, to her - this girl he’d never met and somehow that got through the fog she was walking around in. So he talked, and she let him.

After a few minutes of rambling about the prettiest ship he’d ever seen and the guys in town he owed money to and wanting to get off this rock as fast as humanly possible and not meaning any harm or disrespect and all, she narrowed her eyes. The moment passed, and, getting frustrated, she told him to _“just shut the hells up and get off my ship.”_

She lowered her gun, and he started to walk towards the exit that lay beyond her. Every instinct he had was probably screaming at him to _run_ don’t walk, don’t look back. There were plenty of other ships he could steal. He just couldn’t have hers.

Then you see, she thought he was gone. She blames it on the fog she was in, her head spinning with the events that had just transpired. Time and measuring it weren’t things she was doing so well with right then. And finally alone, Dutch started crying, without meaning to or being able to stop it. The tears just came and quickly turned into wracking sobs.

Then softly behind her she heard, “Are you okay?”

Maybe it’s because he was now standing between her and the exit. Maybe that made him braver, or maybe he was just stupid.

Probably the latter.

Her shoulders shuddered of their own accord. She tightened her grip on the gun at her side, wondering if it wouldn’t be easier to just shoot him and be done with whatever was happening right now. But exhaustion was creeping over her and instead she spoke, her voice betraying her and coming out uneven and not as demanding as she intended. “I told you to leave. Why aren’t you gone?”

She listened and heard no footsteps so she knew he was still behind her. Every training instinct she had was screaming that she was leaving herself exposed and chastised herself for not watching him all the way to the exit. Maybe it was the trauma screwing with her head, but she thinks maybe somehow she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.

She reached up with her free hand and wiped it across both cheeks. He still could have run; in retrospect he probably should not have given her a third chance to kill him (or even just harm him or whatever), but her words must have sounded less murderous through tears. Dutch heard Johnny take a deep breath and step toward her. He spoke even softer now but at the same time sounded more sure of himself. “Because you’re crying.”

She didn’t say anything and they stood that way for a minute, two, maybe a quarter of an hour. An outsider looking in would have simply seen a crying girl in a wedding dress stained with blood and a skinny boy in ragged clothes with everything to his name in the rucksack on his shoulder. In losing everything, they’d find something they never could have expected, friendship and something close to freedom, but these would come much later.

Dutch regained composure and turned around. Her eyes were puffy, her cheeks still wet, and - if she wasn’t before - she was really ready now to completely shut down emotionally and physically, but he was still there, standing on her ship. And she still didn’t know if she had anything left in her to force an end to this situation one way or another. So she stood there, the gun still in her grip, safety off.

Johnny spoke slowly at first. “Look. I don’t know what’s going on, but it looks to me like you’re having a really bad day.” Dutch just kept looking at him, and Johnny kept talking. “And if it’s anything like the day I’ve had, you’re probably ready to get the hells off this planet and far away from whatever it is you just came from. If you tell me to go again, I’ll go, I swear it. But if you let me stay... ” He paused, and breathed out, almost like he was steeling himself, for what she wasn’t entirely sure. But then he said it, the words that would become the basis for their friendship, and the reason she gave in. “If you let me, we don’t have to stay here. We can just fly away. Never come back.”

Dutch had stared back at him, sizing him up. She’d never had a partner, or a friend. And she didn’t really think then that he would become either. But she was so tired and a small part of her just didn’t want to be alone. Without actually deciding, the next words had come out of her mouth, making the decision for her: “Can you fly?”

“Wh- what?” he stuttered.

“The ship, idiot. _Can you fly the ship?_ ” She exhaled, almost growling.

“Oh, yeah. Yes, I can fly.”

“Ok. Then fly it. Far. I don’t care where.”

“Um. OK,” he replied. Dutch started to walk away then, contemplating showering and sleeping for the next one hundred years. She wasn’t sure what other murderous brides or almost brides do after they’ve decided to let a stranger fly their ship, but quite frankly she also didn’t care. Johnny called after her, though, before she managed to get very far, “You didn’t tell me your name.”

She turned and furrowed her brows just a little. Yalena on her tongue, but suddenly struck by the thought that it doesn’t have to be, she didn’t have to be Yalena anymore. For the first time in her life perhaps, she got a choice. “It’s… Dutch.”

He nodded his head once. “I’m John, well Johnny.”

“And I’m Lucy,” came from a speaker somewhere overhead. Johnny flinched. “Who was that?”

Now Dutch was really getting annoyed. Had she just let an idiot talk her into staying on her ship? “Lucy.” _Duh._ Johnny’s face still looked confused. She rolled her eyes and motioned around the ship with her hand. “She’s the ship.”

“Ah, nice to meet you, Lucy. And Dutch,” he said, sounding like a schoolboy sucking up. She rolled her eyes again. This was definitely a mistake.

“Oh, I like him, Dutch. Are we keeping him?” Lucy chimes in again.

Dutch hesitated, sized Johnny up again. Probably a mistake, but one that could always be rectified later. She sighed. “For now.”

 

**_six years and change later_ **

 

This bar is nothing like The Royale. It’s tiny and cold and dark and is more of an actual hole than a space anyone should be serving joy. Dutch has fished drunks out of worse places, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want to turn on her heel the minute she walked in. There’s a layer of grime coating every surface and the undeniable stench of piss and misery.

“C’mon Johnny, up you go.” Dutch pulls him up from the table he’s draped over, pulling an arm across her shoulders and sliding an arm around his back. Johnny squints at her and slurs what sounds like, “sorry, Dutch,” to which she offers no reply and hoists him up fully from the table. Johnny participates little in this process, stumbling on his feet awkwardly as they fail to fully hold his weight. He does however continue slurring drunken apologies which Dutch handles by telling him to shut it to no avail until his head slumps forward once again.

He stays awake enough, though, to shuffle his feet forward. The sun is bright and even though she had only been in the bar long enough to collect Johnny, the light stings Dutch’s eyes when they emerge from the bar and head toward Lucy.

The walk to the ship is longer than she’d like with Johnny. She wasn’t sure what condition she’d find him in, but she didn’t expect him to leave himself so vulnerable out in the open.

On Lucy, she’s greeted by a barrage of questions from the overly affectionate ship.

“Dutch, do you have Johnny?”

“Yes, he’s-"

“-Is he alive? Is he hurt?" The ship replies, clearly fretting. If ship interfaces had hands, Lucy would be wringing hers. "Should I search the planet’s registry for a doctor? Or maybe-”

“LUCY!” Dutch yells, already pissed and getting more so by the minute.

“Yes, Dutch.”

“Johnny is fine,” Dutch half growls. “He’s just drunk. Open the door to his room.”

The ship complies and Dutch shoves Johnny off her shoulders and onto the bed. He groans, showing the first sign of life since the bar. Dutch mumbles under her breath, to no one in particular, “And he’s in for one helluva hangover.”

As she heads out of the room, she hears him, softly and hoarsely call after her. She walks back and kneels next to the head of his bed. He’s on his side and his glazed eyes stare back at her.

“Messed up.”

She sighs and thinks ‘yes, yes you are.’

“S’all my fault.”

She shushes him at this. “Go to sleep, Johnny.”

“No. S’my fault. They died. S’my fault.” He stares at her, out of it, but also clearly focused on having this drunken conversation right now even though there’s no way he’s going to remember it in the morning. Dutch is frustrated and still mad as hell at him, but she doesn’t want to hear him blaming himself for everything either. “You didn’t turn up the rage-o-meter, Johnny.”

At this Johnny shakes his head, tears start pooling in his eyes. “S’my fault. Everyone I love leaves. Pawter. Mom. D’avin.” Johnny’s voice is weak and full of despair. Dutch can feel her resolve lessen, ever so slightly; he’s usually a cheerful drunk and the sadness in his eyes seems to age his boyish looks. She reaches out to his temple, fingers find hair and her palm rests against his cheek. She tilts her head so his gaze meets hers. “Johnny, hey hey look at me, Johnny, I’m here. I’m still here.” He stares back, and they stay there until his eyes drift close.

Dutch runs her thumb across his cheekbone.


End file.
